Cori Schumacher

Bruce Brown’s 1966 The Endless Summer(TES) presented an alternative narrative to the shenanigans of the many beach/surfy lifestyle movies that erupted from Hollywood after Gidget emerged to much fanfare in 1958.

In TES, there are no post-surf bonfire orgies, no frustrating hetero-love triangles that finally resolve in dramatic Hollywood fashion, and certainly no surfing ladies to be seen. While it may not be true that Brown intentionally set out to exclude women from his surfari, the atmosphere of TES’ wilderness seeking, homosocial masculinity as a means of reclaiming a perceived lost authenticity is hard to miss. We cannot overlook the fact that the Hollywood beach blanket binge that led to the overcrowding of the early 1960s Southern California coastline was instigated by the stories of a certain prototypical surf babe.

While we are able to say that the introduction of surfing to consumerism (thus the introduction of surfing-as-a-business) was centered squarely on the back of the female surfer as she was portrayed by Hollywood, we can also say that surfing-as-a-business’ future as a globalized youth leisure consumer industry was scored by the apolitical, privileged, border crossing surf exploration of a couple of middle-class, white bros out to discover an authentic summer: not a season so much as a yet-to-be-storied-by-western-white-tourists wilderness.

Krista Comer has mapped the progression of this trajectory in her groundbreaking 2011 book Surfer Girls in the New World Order. Within these pages, Comer not only chronicles the emergence of the Surfer Girl and her bohemian Beat inspired male surfer counterpart, but also the historical context from which these cultural and gender deviant characters arose.

“Emergent alternative or bohemian versions of maleness came about in tension with atypical femininities; they were produced simultaneously. The kind of young woman wishing to be around rebel men was herself taking risks, pushing the gendered boundaries. We are here of course squarely in the period about which Betty Friedan would break the silence: that of the problem with no name.” For men, says Comer, the post-WWII problem did have a name: conformity. (Comer, pp. 49-50)

Current trends in surfing-as-a-business exhibit a sensitivity to the power of these origin stories with a “regression forward” ethos. Examples of this can be seen in the rise of the sponsored “freesurfer” with his/her spurning of the competitive circuit (a strangely recursive metaphor for leaving the “rat-race” behind in an activity that was itself an escape from post-WWII’s corporate conformity only decades ago) and narratives that contain a hat-tip and a longing gaze towards the Beat Generation’s carefree wanderings and letterings. Additionally, TES-like surf explorations are pushing further out into new wildernesses (thanks to better swell forecasting, GPS, jet skis, inflatable wetsuits, etc.) that surfers are ostensibly taking a more politically protective stance towards, although this too is complicated by the fact that such spaces are already locations of disturbance due to a globalization that the surf industry itself has been an agent of:

“Modern environmental concern is motivated by a need to mourn lost objects, but rarely is the value of what is lost recognized; instead there is a mad scramble to find replacements, replicating through the commodity form the same relations of ecological destruction that created the loss in the first place (Queer Ecologies, p. 39).”

(I cannot help but think of the evolution and emergence of wave pools in light of the above quote.)



As Comer details, TES was not a narrative that emerged from a desire to find an endless summer (easy enough to find in Hawaii at the time) but from a desire to counter the gaudy trappings and influx of an enveloping consumerism. But as any neoliberal industry will illustrate deftly, and as surfing-as-a-business exemplifies, the best means for combatting opposition is assimilation. This is what we are seeing with the current trends detailed above, a sort of “regression forward” cannibalization (see Ted Endo’s piece Joel Tudor and Reflections on the State of Longboarding). Can we “regress forward” if such regressions will simply be assimilated into the machinations of the very system such movements are meant to create distance from?

Such assimilations initially feel like freedom to the creative (artist, surfer, crazy personality). The line usually goes something like: “Do what you like. Whatever you like. Here’s your paycheck.” Anything that is created is tagged or marked by the brand writing the paycheck. Easy enough… but the difficulty emerges when the identities of the agents (Individual and Brand) begin to coalesce. This happens within the mind of the consumer and this phenomenon is what Brands count on to sell their products. 

Does the creative mind that the content they are creating, at least in part, functions as a kind of marketing pneuma for the Brand? Does the creative squirm when their own identity is absorbed and regurgitated by a mechanism in such a way that Individual and Brand become reflections of each other, directing such individuality that overflows in the direction of consumers hungry to espouse (and not create their own) identities? How long will creativity flourish in such an environment? How long will it take to break down the agency of the Individual before s/he starts taking suggestions from agents of the Brand? That which flourishes in the sun often withers in the shade.

“Women and girls are but one index of industry’s controlling strong arm. Wherever the global surf industry is dense, social space tends to be extremely regulated (Comer, p.207).”

We are not here dealing with superficial subterfuge easily discounted or warped in favor of actual freedom for the Individual. The curling fist of this relationship may be slow moving, but it is in motion, tightening the space, limiting mobility and creativity so long as the relationship does last.

“For girl localisms to flourish and for subcultural alternative gender formations to persist and deepen, the tendency of global capitalism to cannibalize the local and to then repackage it must be frustrated. This will require simultaneous efforts across multiple sites of the local, even if what works at one local site will not automatically work at another (Comer, p. 207, emphasis mine).”

Knowing this and refusing to participate in Brand dynamics does not guarantee that one’s creations (or even personal style) will not be assimilated… but what remains extant is an ownership of self and one’s ability to constantly redefine, reshape, and upset one’s identity and to connect with others in actually authentic moments that do not reflect, or reflect upon, any Brand.

“It is clear to many that women surfers must take on and effectively challenge surf industry giants. Surfing as big business must be called out, pressured wherever possible on the notion that women are nothing but either bikinis or consumer markets. At every age level this challenge must be waged–and the younger the girls who are doing it, the better. Such a task requires political savvy, since the livelihoods of many of surfing’s most prominent spokeswomen are tied to industry sponsorship. That link has undoubtedly enabled female travel, influence within surfing, and the ability to make a living, but it also has regulated the terms of inclusion and critique (Comer, p. 207, emphasis mine).”

So how to “surf forward” from this point. The key lies not in a longing backwards glance, nor in any “progressive ambassadorships”, but in the tantalizing prospect of the creation of new narratives. These would not be the type of narratives that would bolster or broaden the remains of surfing-as-a-business, but the types of narratives that deepen the experience of surfing, that push past the concatenation of puerile stories that lock surfing in and to an antiquated conceptualization of a simple demographic. Rather let these new narratives, new biographies, new voices transport and transform the possibilities of surfing-as-experience and let these narratives breathe outside of the ownership of business interests or any “lifestyle” interest.

Surfing-the-activity sits aside, untouched, unfazed. It is surfing-the-experience that deserves and warrants our attention, that is, surfing as we experience it, as it changes us, as we share it with each other, and as we reclaim it as its rightful owners. Each to their own story.